500. How to setup interactive search in GtkTreeView for PHP GTK v2.0 - Part 1 - non OOP version?

Problem

If you have tried the latest PHP-GTK v2.0 or v2.0.1 on the windows platform, you will know that there seems to be some bugs with the interactive search for GtkTreeview. The interactive search works in PHP-GTK2 alpha and beta versions, but not in v2.0 or v2.0.1.

Carl shared with us a brilliant work-around he has found.

This article shows a complete sample code using Carl's method as shown below.

As there are many interesting techniques involved, to make it easier to understand, in this Part 1 you will find all the basic functionalities of the interactive search in place:

  1. Press Ctrl-F to start interactive search. (Note that this is on windows platform. In the alpha and beta version, windows users need to press Ctrl-F to start the interactive search.)
  2. You can exit the interactive search by pressing [Enter] or [Esc].
  3. You can also exit the search by clicking anywhere in the treeview.

For part 1, I've used the plain PHP approach (that is, without using any classes or OOP - object-oriented programming). Although it's easier to understand the code, you will notice a lot of global variables sprinkling around.

In Part 2, for those who like using classes, I present the OOP version. You will find all the global variables and callback functions neatly encapsulated in the various classes.

In Part 3, I added one more enhancement: on windows platform, the interactive search will automatically kicks in when you start typing any character in the treeview - just like what the users experience on the linux platform! Yes, you do not need to press Ctrl-F to start the interactive search!.

In Part 4, I added one more enhancement: the interactive search box will automatically disappear after 3 seconds of inactivity.

How to setup interactive search in GtkTreeView for PHP GTK v2.0 - Part 1 - non OOP version?


Solution

The keys to Carl's work-around are as follows:

  • Set GtkTreeView::set_enable_search(false) to turn off automatic interactive search.
  • Register the signal 'start-interactive-search' on the treeview to let us know when the user pressed Ctrl-F.
  • When the user presses Ctrl-F, we take on everything manually, which includes:
    1. Create a new GtkWindow.
    2. Add a GtkEntry to the window.
    3. Use GtkTreeView::set_search_entry() use this entry as the search field for the interactive search.
    4. Position the window at the bottom right corner, just like the default interactive search.
    5. Close this search window when the user presses [Enter] or [Esc].
    6. Also close the search window when the user clicks on any part of the parent treeview.

I thought this is a really interesting example. If you have some time, I would really encourage you to try this out as an exercise. You will learn a lot of very interesting tricks and techniques, such as:

  • How to have two concurrent GtkWindow's running at the same time?
  • Why did I use a GtkWindow for the popup search box instead of a GtkDialog? Try using a GtkDialog. You will realize why it's toughter to use a GtkDialog.
  • For some reason, the signal 'start-interactive-search' is emitted twice! You need to have some way to suppress the second one.
  • How to close the popup GtkWindow?
  • Besides closing the popup search box, you have to do some clean up (otherwise you'll keep getting some warning messages because your search entry disappears together with the popup window, and PHP-GTK couldn't find it!)
  • How to detect mouse click on the parent treeview when the interactive search box is running?
  • How to make the interactive search box always appear at the bottom right of the application window?

Interesting, right...?


Sample Code

Important Note: This only works for PHP-GTK v2.0 (or PHP-GTK2 compliled with gtk+ v2.12 and above. If you are using an older version, for linux, you may follow the step-by-step instructions to recompile php-gtk2 with gtk+ v2.12. For windows, please refer to How to install php gtk2 on windows?

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<?php
$window = new GtkWindow();
$window->set_title($argv[0]);
$window->set_size_request(400, 240);
$window->connect_simple('destroy', array('Gtk','main_quit'));
$window->add($vbox = new GtkVBox());

// display title
$title = new GtkLabel("Interactive search in GtkTreeView for PHP-GTK v2.0\n".
"             Part 1 - plain PHP (non-OOP) version");
$title->modify_font(new PangoFontDescription("Times New Roman Italic 10"));
$title->modify_fg(Gtk::STATE_NORMAL, GdkColor::parse("#0000ff"));
$title->set_size_request(-1, 40);
$vbox->pack_start($title, 0, 0);
$vbox->pack_start(new GtkLabel(), 0);

$vbox->pack_start(new GtkLabel('Press Ctrl-F to activate interactive search'), 0);
$vbox->pack_start(new GtkLabel('Note: Search column is the Qty column'), 0);

// the 2D table
$data = array(
array('row0', 'item 42', 2, 3.1),
array('row1', 'item 36', 20, 6.21),
array('row2', 'item 21', 8, 9.36),
array('row3', 'item 10', 11, 12.4),
array('row4', 'item 7', 41, 15.5),
array('row5', 'item 4', 72, 18.6),
array('row6', 'item 3', 93, 21.73));

$view = display_table($vbox, $data);

$view->set_enable_search(false); // note 1
$view->connect('start-interactive-search', 'on_search_start'); // note 2
$view->connect('button-press-event', 'on_buttonpress'); // note 3
$searchbox_on = 0; // note 4

$window->show_all();
Gtk::main();

function display_table($vbox, $data) {

    // Set up a scroll window
    $scrolled_win = new GtkScrolledWindow();
    $scrolled_win->set_policy( Gtk::POLICY_AUTOMATIC,
        Gtk::POLICY_AUTOMATIC);
    $vbox->pack_start($scrolled_win);

    // Creates the list store
    if (defined("GObject::TYPE_STRING")) {
        $model = new GtkListStore(GObject::TYPE_STRING, GObject::TYPE_STRING,
                    GObject::TYPE_LONG, GObject::TYPE_DOUBLE);
    } else {
        $model = new GtkListStore(Gtk::TYPE_STRING, Gtk::TYPE_STRING,
                    Gtk::TYPE_LONG, Gtk::TYPE_DOUBLE);
    }
    $field_header = array('Row #', 'Description', 'Qty', 'Price');
    $field_justification = array(0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 1.0);

    // Creates the view to display the list store
    $view = new GtkTreeView($model);
    $scrolled_win->add($view);

    // Creates the columns
    for ($col=0; $col<count($field_header); ++$col) {
        $cell_renderer = new GtkCellRendererText();
        $cell_renderer->set_property("xalign", $field_justification[$col]);
        $column = new GtkTreeViewColumn($field_header[$col],
            $cell_renderer, 'text', $col);
        $column->set_alignment($field_justification[$col]);
        $column->set_sort_column_id($col);

        // set the header font and color
        $label = new GtkLabel($field_header[$col]);
        $label->modify_font(new PangoFontDescription("Arial Bold"));
        $label->modify_fg(Gtk::STATE_NORMAL, GdkColor::parse("#0000FF"));
        $column->set_widget($label);
        $label->show();

        // setup self-defined function to display alternate row color
        $column->set_cell_data_func($cell_renderer, "format_col", $col);
        $view->append_column($column);
    }

    // pupulates the data
    for ($row=0; $row<count($data); ++$row) {
        $values = array();
        for ($col=0; $col<count($data[$row]); ++$col) {
            $values[] = $data[$row][$col];
        }
        $model->append($values);
    }

    $selection = $view->get_selection();
    $selection->connect('changed', 'on_selection');

    return $view;
}

// self-defined function to format the price column
function format_col($column, $cell, $model, $iter, $col_num) {
    $path = $model->get_path($iter); // get the current path
    $row_num = $path[0]; // get the row number
    if ($col_num==3) {
        $amt = $model->get_value($iter, 3);
        $cell->set_property('text', '$'.number_format($amt,2));
    }
    $row_color = ($row_num%2==1) ? '#dddddd' : '#ffffff';
    $cell->set_property('cell-background', $row_color);
}

// the function that is called when user selects a row
function on_selection($selection) {
    list($model, $iter) = $selection->get_selected();
    if ($iter==null) return;
    $desc = $model->get_value($iter, 1);
    $qty = $model->get_value($iter, 2);
    $price = $model->get_value($iter, 3);
    print "You have selected $desc: $qty ($price)\n";
}

function on_search_start($view) {
    global $searchbox_on;
    if (!$searchbox_on) interactive_search($view);
}

function interactive_search($view) {
    global $searchbox_on;
    $searchbox_on = 1;

    global $search_win;
    $search_win = new GtkWindow(); // note 5
    $search_win->add($vbox = new GtkVBox());
    $search_win->set_modal(0);
    $search_win->set_decorated(0);

    $vbox->pack_start($frame = new GtkFrame(), 0); // note 6
    $frame->add($search_entry = new GtkEntry()); // note 7
    $search_entry->connect('key-press-event', 'on_entry_keypress'); // note 8

    $view->set_search_entry($search_entry); // note 9
    $view->set_search_column(2); // note 10

    $search_win->show_all();
    set_searchwin_pos($search_entry); // note 11
}

function on_buttonpress($view, $event) {
    global $searchbox_on;
    if ($searchbox_on)  destroy_searchwin();
}

function on_entry_keypress($entry, $event) {
    if ($event->keyval==Gdk::KEY_Return ||
        $event->keyval==Gdk::KEY_Escape) {
        destroy_searchwin();
    }
    return false;
}

function destroy_searchwin() { // note 12
    global $search_win, $searchbox_on, $view;
    $view->set_search_entry(null);
    $search_win->destroy();
    $searchbox_on = 0;
    $view->grab_focus();
}

function set_searchwin_pos($search_entry) { // note 11
   global $window, $view, $search_win;
    $win_pos = $window->get_position();
    $x_shift = 0;
    $y_shift = 6;
    $x = $win_pos[0] + $view->allocation->width -
        $search_entry->allocation->width + $x_shift;
    $y = $win_pos[1] + $view->allocation->height +
        $view->allocation->y + $search_entry->allocation->height + $y_shift ;
    $search_win->move($x, $y);
}

?>

Output

As shown above.
 

Explanation

We start with the base code from How to display a 2D array in GtkTreeView - Part 5 - get user selection?

What's new here:

  1. Turn off automatic interactive search.
  2. Register the signal 'start-interactive-search' on the treeview to let us know when the user pressed Ctrl-F.
  3. Register the signal 'button-press-event' on the treeview to let us know when the user clicks somewhere in the treeview.
  4. This global variable $searchbox_on keeps track of whether there is currently a search box displayed.
  5. This is the popup window containing the search box.
  6. Creates a frame surrounding the search field.
  7. This is the search field.
  8. Register the signal 'key-press-event' on the treeview to let us know when the user presses [Enter] or [Esc].
  9. Use this entry as the interactive search field.
  10. Set column 2 (i.e. the Qty column) as the search column.
  11. Moves the search box to bottom right of the application window.
  12. Destroys the search box and pass control back to the treeview.

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